PARFAIT

Princeton University
December 3, 2005

Team: Jason Keller, Chris Skalit, Chris Horng, Nimrod Grinvald
Record: 10-2  (7-1 prelims, 2-1 playoffs, defeated Kentucky 235-175 in a final)
Tournament Winner: Rutgers!  YEAH BABY!

Summary

We volunteered to take Seth Kendall to the tournament, and we got to play against him three times.  The first match came in round 3, and we managed to edge him out.  I remarked that that might have been our toughest match of the day, but we didn't know what the rest of the packets were holding for us.  Our next match against Maryland B was a close match on a speed packet which we won via protest.  We later lost to Maryland A on the last question (not bad considering they got five more tossups than we did) on another speed packet.  A 7-1 record was still good enough to tie for first place with Seth, so we went into the playoffs as the top seed.  We got justified payback for our Maryland A loss, and beat Penn A in a match that was a little too close, again decided on the last question.  We did a good job of staying calm and realizing that the science was coming.  We came into match number two against Seth, who had lost his playoff match to Maryland A, with two chances to clinch the title.  We came up with too little too late in the first match; it essentially came down to a question on the First Barbary War.  So the stage was set for a final.  We crept out to a small lead and hung on for dear life.  Fittingly, the match came down to the last tossup, on Lech Walesa, which earned us the first open tournament win in RUAT history, and the first tournament win of any kind since 2000. 

Most of the packets were very good, and good things abounded.  Highlights included the teams' reactions to my Bea Arthur tossup (mostly laughter, especially at the thought of Bea Arthur in the Marine Corps), having the luxury of giving a default (and sadly, wrong) answer of "Culinary Critic Asako Kishi" twice, Chris Horng's affinity for judge pedals, a tossup on Turkmenbashi, and the post-tournament celebration at Rafferty's.  They even had chocolate mousse cheesecake!  Also, we should mention that Seth is a really cool guy, and it was great to hang around with him for the day.

This was an enjoyable way to transition into finals period and winter break.  Let's hope it takes us a little less than five years to win our next tournament.

Scores

Round
 Opponent
 Result
1
 Penn A W, 230-85
2
 Columbia W, 400-25
3
 Kentucky W, 240-160
4
 Maryland B
 W, 225-185
5
 Bye
6
 Rutgers-Newark
 W, 330-45
7
 Penn B
 W, 385-70
8
 Maryland A
 L, 175-220
9
 Delaware
 W, 280-140
10
 Maryland A
 W, 310-110
11
 Penn A W, 300-255
12
 Kentucky
 L, 190-255
Final
 Kentucky W, 235-175

Individual Stats

Stats reflect prelims only.

Player
 TU
 Neg PPG
Jason
 71
 6
 85.00
Chris S.
 4
 0
 5.00
Chris H.
 9
 0
 11.25
Nimrod (6 games)
 3
 0
 5.00